NGC 6050 - Hercules Galaxy Cluster

NGC 6050 - Hercules Galaxy Cluster: NGC 6050 is the brighter of the pair of colliding spiral galaxies near the center of the frame. In addition to the numerous obvious galaxies in this most impressive cluster, most of the other "points" of light are actually just more distant galaxies that are unresolved in this image. The cluster itself is around 500 million light-years away.

NGC: 6050
Other Catalogs: Arp 272
Right Ascension: 16h 05m
Declination: 17° 44'
Apparent Magnitude: 10.0

Date: September 2008
Equipment:
Telescope: Meade 16" Schmidt Cassegrain with f6.3 reducer
Camera: SBIG ST-10XE
Guiding: Meade 5" refractor/DSI Pro/PHD
Exposure: L:R:G:B = 165:36:33:36 in 3 minutes subs
Processing Notes: my notes
Scale: 1.01

Links to images of this object on other sites:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070719.html
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n6050.html

Additional Comments: This image was taken after the new wedge was installed, but before the RA glitch was fixed. Therefore, the sub-frames were limited to 3 minutes. Significantly more dynamic range should be attainable whenever we re-shoot this cluster with longer sub-frames.

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